Introduction

What's Been Happening

Signed, Sealed and Delivered
We've done it! - Yes, it is true! As of 4th March 2007 "The Mango House" is a fully registered and recognised Children's home under the Goa Children's Act. A signed, sealed and delivered licence certificate finally arrived on our doorstep some 16 months after our original application. The journey has been long, hard and traumatic at times. We would like to thank everyone who has helped and believed in what we do as without your help our dream would never have come true.

Last July we thought we were beat as we received notice that our application had been denied. It was a tough time for everyone but we were not willing to give up. We submitted an appeal and then spent the next 6 months meeting with the government and putting our case forward. In the end the Chief Secretary of Goa rightly decided that there were no good reasons for denying our licence. Finally early this year we received an order from the government giving us the go ahead. To be sure we didn't start straight away but decided to wait until we received the certificate.

We would like to personally thank the Chief Secretary, Roshel and everybody who helped with securing our licence.

The children have continually asked over the last six months when they can return to the house. Every week we had to tell them, 'not yet, hopefully soon'. I am sure the children were as frustrated as we were. When we finally got the chance to say - 'we have our licence', the children were delighted and exploded into cheers and song.

One of the requirements of getting our licence was to employ a few more members of staff to work at The Mango House.  We have recently employed new staff on either full time or on a trial basis we have been looking for an accountant, full time social worker and gardener. We have always been very fortunate with our staff and have had Aloysius and his wife Sangeeta working with us for over a year as house parents and Saroja working as a cook/cleaner.

As we have our licence our staff will grow and hopefully we will then be able to help more children providing them with the chance of an education, nutritious food, medical attention and a safe place to rest and learn.

Thank you to everyone! - We've done it..... :o)

Too much heat
As the temperature heats up there are more and more cases of prickly heat and heat boils. Both are very uncomfortable and can be quite painful. One girl had to have a heat boil operated on as it was becoming increasingly large. She was taken to Vrundavan hospital for the treatment and had the boil sliced open and drained. It was a painful experience but we are glad to report that it is healing well and it seems we have prevented her other boils from developing further. Allowing the children to spend greater amounts of time in the cool shade of the mango house really helps especially at this time of year.

Scabies
Yes, the dreaded scabies has emerged again with a vengeance. There have been approximately 15 cases in the last few months. Some of our regular children have been affected, but there has also been a group of travelling road workers that have settled near to The Mango House that we have also helped for scabies. Some cases have been quite severe. One of the younger children had an acute case, it was very extensive and obviously painful. One of our volunteers (Dr Jasreena) helped to bath and clean her and taught her mother how to apply the lotion. She was also given a new set of clothes. After a week she appeared to be recovering, however she then contracted conjunctivitis, which closed up her left eye – it looked like she had been in a round with Rocky! Conjunctivitis is exceptionally contagious, however due to quick treatment we were able to prevent it spreading to the rest of her family or other children. She is much better now that she has returned to the house, regular showers and clean clothes help neutralise the spread of scabies.

Dental Work
We would like to extend a big thank-you to Dr Toshepu’s dental practice in Calangute (http://www.goadentalclinic.com), who are kindly providing free dental checkups and dental work for many of our children. All the children had fillings and one of the older girls needed a tooth extracted. The children were very brave, and the dentists were remarkably clever and caring to ensure that the equipment didn’t appear scary. Unfortunately the tooth extraction was complicated as the tooth was badly infected and broke apart – the procedure took longer than she (and we) had hoped. Thankfully all the children have recovered from the experience. Several more children have returned in the last week, two of which had teeth extracted and the rest had small either permanent or temporary fillings done and will be returning again next week. Thank you again to all those who helped.

MMR Vaccinations
Children Walking Tall was able to host a MMR vaccination program with the children from the Karaswada and Crossroads Slums.  MMR, (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) is a very common vaccination usually given as two injections.  The first injection is typically given when the child is around 12 months old or older, then a booster shot is given when the child is anywhere from 7-12 years of age. Even though these three viruses are few and far between in Western countries, many children in India and especially in the Karaswada and Crossroads slums are still afflicted by them each year.  Last year as many as 10 children required hospitalisation due to measles, as they were not vaccinated.

In total, around 95 children have taken part in the MMR vaccination programme. As with all the work we do we get prior permission from all the parents, thankfully the parents are very pleased with the work we do and are happy to be included in such programmes. We are also planning more vaccinations which include Hepatitis B, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, and Typhoid.

Health Centre Visit
We have had two doctors volunteering with us during the last few months, Andy and Jasreena have been a great help and we wanted to take full advantage of their skills. Jasreena went to see the local health centre and organised a vaccination programme with them for the children. The health centre brought a team to the Mango House where they gave the children either DTP, DT, TT and/or Polio vaccinations and a vitamin A booster. All the children were very brave even though several of them had fevers and aching legs the next day (which is a common side effect of the vaccinations). All the children have fully recovered and we hope this and the other programmes we provide will give the children a better chance at staying fit and healthy in the future.

School
The school year has finished and we're happy to report that all the children who took their exams this year passed. We are so proud of the children and are happy that they will all be moving up to the next standard in the new term. This year we hope to get even more children into school by providing uniforms, books, bags, shoes and all the school essentials. Now that the house is open, the children will go to school in the morning and then join us at the house after school for lunch. The new term starts in June so for the time being the children are enjoying their break. We are continuing the non-formal schooling at "The Mango House" and give them a craft project each day as well as English and math lessons.

Cinema Outing
As all the children had passed their exams we wanted to give them a treat, something new that they would remember for a long time.  Since coming to the house, the children have enjoyed watching ‘Mr Bean’ on the TV and coincidently the new ‘Mr Bean’ film had just been released at the cinema so we decided to take them to the cinema.  We took 3 groups of children, 32 in total, and it was great to see their amazed faces as we stood outside the large Inox cinema in Panjim.  After purchasing the tickets we proceeded inside and bought popcorn and Pepsi for them to share.  We then took our seats in the auditorium ready for the show.  After standing for the National Anthem we sat and relaxed to enjoy the film.  Throughout the film all you could hear were the children laughing and talking to each other about what was happening.

All the children thoroughly enjoyed their day out and returned to the house to tell the rest of their friends about the film, the cinemas and the new food they had tasted.

Beach Trip and Firework Display
A favourite event with the children and volunteers are the beach trips. We try not to spoil the children too much but as the beach is so close it's easy to go out for the day and give the children a chance to play in the sand and the sea. This will probably be the last beach trip this season as now the sea is becoming increasingly rough and is not as safe for the children as most can not swim. We hope we will return to the beach next season once the sea calms down. We would also like to thank Hokey Koki and friends who organised a firework display for the children. We took around 40 children to Candolim Beach for an evening firework display. The children were so excited and loved the display. Each firework was joined by "oooohh wow hey!" as they went off...

Excess Baggage
We would like to say a great big thank you to all the airlines who have given us excess luggage during the last year and of course Melanie and Penny in the UK that have volunteered their time to arrange the luggage.It can be a difficult job as many airlines have strict policies for charity luggage and need to know the full details of what is being brought and for which charity. Melanie and Penny have made it look easy and we have had many visitors through them being able to bring lots of goodies for the children. Thank you very much for all your time, help and support.

Volunteers
Many volunteers come for the tourist season (October through to March) so it has been the end for most of our volunteers. It was quite hard as most left within a couple of weeks of each other and we got a little worried when we had just one volunteer left (Penny). Thankfully the 'replacements' weren't far behind and we were back up to full strength before the house opened. We would like to thank everyone who has helped this season, in the last couple of months we have said goodbye to Penny, Andy, Ian, Preya, Jake, Jasreena, Lina, Deirdre, Caroline, Dave, Jan, Anna, Louise and Linda. Several have continued on their travels around the world, Caroline and Dave popped back in before leaving India and Anna and Louise might return in the next couple of weeks after spending some time in Nepal...

We were happy to welcome new volunteers Lisa, Harriet, Amber, John (returning volunteer), Frank and Katie to the team, they all settled in very quickly and they are all great with the children. There should be a few more joining us for the monsoon, which is good as Robert and Shermina will be returning to the UK for a month each to help with the UK side which is headed up by Denise. They'll also hopefully have time to visit a few old volunteers and fundraiser's.

Volunteer Views... (By Maureen Charters)
After waiting for over 12 months news finally arrived of the reopening of Mango House. It was all very hectic trying to get ready to open on the following monday. There was only one volunteer left so after a very enjoyable holiday it was my privilege to be able to help. On the Monday morning we had a total of 36 children arrive and it was decided as the children hadn't had a bath for so long they would all be given one along with a clean set of clothes. Well it was all systems go. The children were given a drink of water when they arrived and they had a little playtime until they all arrived. There was an hour of English and math then they were given milk and biscuits. There was a craft session, which consisted of colouring in followed by lunch. After lunch there was a rest period for the younger ones while the older ones did the washing of their clothes causing much hilarity particularly while ringing out the clothes, towels especially. The afternoon was free playtime for cricket, skipping etc. then fruit and water and then the journey home. That was the first day and all the rest of the week was similar except for the worming of the children which was interesting to say the least and ears, nails and hair cleaned. The girls were bathed twice more and the boys the same on alternate days. In the following week they were all given their own flip-flops (to protect their feet) tooth brushes, exercise books, pencils and two more sets of new clothes. Two new volunteers Harriet and Lisa arrived and were thrown in at the deep end, they started as soon as they arrived which was very good and did a sterling job and brought some very good ideas. Good luck girls!!! It was a very tiring two weeks for me but very worthwhile so if anyone out there is interested in helping Children Walking Tall please do so as it is very fulfilling and the more helpers the more children will be cared for.

Giving Clothes to local hospitals
For the past few months we've made several visits to the local government hospitals to give out baby clothes. It all started one day while we were at hospital with one of the mothers from the slum. There were lots of mothers who had very little, many not even anything to wrap their babies in so we thought we would ask if it would be possible to give out baby clothes to the new mothers. The nurses and doctors thought it would be a lovely idea. We now go as often as possible and bring enough for all the new mothers. It's normally only one or two items for each baby but the parents are very appreciative of the offer. It's great to see the smiles and joy with such a small gesture.

Giving out clothes in the slums
As well as giving out baby clothes in the hospitals we have made the most of spare time before we once again opened "The Mango House" to the children. We went around several slums including those in Vasco, Pondo, Panjim, Mapusa and more tourist areas like Calangute and Baga. The need is the same, although the experiences can be wildly different. Some areas might just have a few families, others like Vasco are huge slum communities. The larger areas become more difficult to keep control as it takes longer to give the items out and the children and parents become tired of waiting and try to push in. The day (from Robert and Ali's perspective) went really well, although some of the volunteers wouldn't agree as it can be very hectic and intense. We will hopefully go back and help the local school with a few resources as they seem to be doing good work with the children. Over the last two months we have probably given out over 2000 items of clothing as well as toothbrushes, soap, shampoo and tooth paste, rice, dal, towels and other items. We will continue to help the families directly as it allows us to understand the children more and see what their lives are like everyday. With this outreach work it also allows the families to get to know our work and what is available from Children Walking Tall.

Helping Other Charities
We receive lots of requests from other charities, many asking for financial help, others asking for advice and physical hands on help. We try to help as many as possible, but obviously the work we do at the Mango House comes first and foremost. We have been able to provide clothes and resources to a few organisations in the last couple of months. These include Folo's Educational Society for young children (clothes, pens, pencils, toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap and shampoo), Preet Mandir (25 sets of clothes) and another small charity for girls close to "The Mango House" (clothes, towels, soap, shampoo. tooth brushes and paste and a few hair clips for the girls). We wish them all the best and hope we can be of help in the future.

Puppet Making Day
We would like to thank Jacqueline Mathewson who is based in the Art and Design Dept of University of Portsmouth. She came over with a friend and taught the children how to make hand puppets. Jacqueline was very organised and brought all the resources and plans. The children had a great day and we look forward to seeing her again next year.

Website

The website continues to be updated, although not quite as often as we hope. As with the newsletters it tends to get put on a back burner as we deal with the day to day running of the charity, making sure the children get to school, sort out their medical problems and of course meet and organise the volunteers and visitors.

Outreach work and magic -
We have continued to do the outreach work in the slums while we have been waiting for our licence. This can be very difficult as it means going close to their homes and sitting in the heat of the afternoon. We would like to thank all the volunteers who helped us in the slum and here are a few photos from the last few months. This collection also includes photos from the day the children returned to the house for a special magic show (Thanks Ian!), they were fascinated by Ian's slight of hand. It was great top see their faces hen balls appeared and disappeared and cards changed in front of their eyes. http://www.ChildrenWalkingTall.com/Pictures.htm

Giving out clothes and fruit
Here are a collection of photos which we have taken in the last couple of months as we have been giving out fruit, toys, clothes and cleaning products to the children and families in the slums.
http://www.ChildrenWalkingTall.com/Pictures.htm

Volunteer Experiences
The volunteer experiences section has been updated with comments by Justine, Frida, Alice, Justine (From Germany) and Kathryn.
www.ChildrenWalkingTall.com/Volunteer-Experiences.htm

Needslist
As it's coming to the end of the season we haven't had so many donations from the needslist, but do have the odd one or two coming through. Thank you to everyone who has donated, hopefully if you have donated for something particular then it will be mentioned on the needslist.
www.ChildrenWalkingTall.com/NeedsList.htm

Events
There has been a couple of new events listed on the events page. If you have any text or images for an event in aid of Children Walking Tall then please let us know and we will add yours to our website.
www.ChildrenWalkingTall.com/Eventst.htm

Fundraising

Monthly Sponsors
As always thank you so much for your continued support. It does make such a difference and has allowed us to set up 'The Mango House' and also provide hundreds of children clothes, fruit and health care. The monthly donations will also allow us to help fund new staff as we open the home, provide the food to the children and to keep The Mango House as a safe dry place of rest for the children.

Easy Fundraising
We have been a part of Easy Fundraising for a while but as of yet haven't gone into any detail about how they can help.

They provide a FREE service where you can shop with all your favourite online stores and at no extra cost raise funds for Children Walking Tall. You still shop directly with each retailer as you would normally, but simply by using the links from the Easy Fundraising Site each retailer will make a cashback donation to the cause you wish to support. For example, spend £25 with WH Smith and 3.5% will be donated. You will have raised £0.88, at no extra cost to your purchase. Make any purchase from Woolworths and 2.5% will be donated. Insure your car with The AA and raise £30.00, or purchase a mobile phone from Vodafone and earn £29.00, and so on.

Congratulations to Paul O'Hara and Aisling Flynn
We are happy to announce the wedding of Paul O'Hara and Aisling Flynn. They were married on the 27th April 2007. Instead of receiving presents from guests they requested that donations should be made to Children Walking Tall. Thank you so much for your generosity and everyone at Children Walking Tall wishes you a beautiful and long life together.

Goa for Toby and I was an amazingly rich place with so much life and tradition. Another reality really hit us however on a trip from Goa to Hampi in central south India. The 9 hour train ride an amazing way to see more of India. As we sat gazing out of the window at such an idyllic place we realised we were being watched; sat down at our feet was a small boy holding out his hand for food. Over the journey we saw many children on the train cleaning the floor with their own shirts and begging. Some were disabled and pulling themselves along on skateboards. Toby and I really began to realise how unfair the world was and how grateful we should be for the opportunities in life that we have been given.

All our experiences in India left us feeling that we wanted to do something to help those who have not had the start in life we have. We promised ourselves and each other we would do something about it. It’s taken us a year but we have finally got there!

Training for the half marathon took several months! We completed the Bournemouth Bay half marathon in 2hrs 3mins, which I think we were both pleased with. We have raised over £400 for Children Walking Tall.

Flashback (By Raj)
Yet again the Flashback team decided on Children Walking Tall being the nominated charity to raise funds for at a recent party in London. Following on from the success of their last party in October which raised 858 for CWT - Flashback team were back for CWT. The night was a total success, great night, great crowd and, of course!!!, great music! Many thanks to DJ Ichi on joining Flashback and playing out a great set, mixing the jungle, dancehall & hip-hop! Pictures should be up and available on www.flashback2001.com very soon! Big thank you to Ritesh & Flashback team for their continuing support.

Kabaret Karma
We would like to thank Simon Webster and everybody who helped with the Kabaret Karma event which was a great success. The money will be put towards the rent for the Mango House which will enable us to continue the work we do giving the children a break from their otherwise hard life in the slums.

Little Steps nursery - Ilkeston
Lorraine who runs the nursery organised a small event and managed to raise £200 for Children Walking Tall. We wish her all the best for her venture and hope she can come and see the work we do in the future.

Jas
We would like to thank Jas who donated £1000 in the UK. The money will be used to help feed the children we work with. Thank you so much for your support.

Fundraisers
Our UK fundraisers have been working hard recently, many do one off events, but we have a couple that continue to do events all year round. Raj is always lining up new events, he was responsible for the link up with the Flashback team again and more events coming up soon. We would also like to thank Helen from Red Sky Events who has been working hard on our behalf to raise funds for Children Walking Tall she's new to the team but already has great plans. Thank you to Raj, Helen and all our helpers whom help fundraising in the UK and abroad

In Memory of the late Mr Ramesh Chander
We would like to thank the Chander family from Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire for the generous donation made on behalf of the late Ramesh Chander. Our thoughts are with the whole family during this hard time.

In Memory of the late Sean Harkin
We would like to thank the Mr and Mrs Noble from Derry for the generous donation made on behalf of their son, Sean Harkin. Sean died suddenly while working in Goa after taking ill. Our thoughts are with the whole family during this difficult period.

Thank you to everybody
We would like to thank everybody who has helped raise funds and awareness over the last two months.  It is becoming increasingly difficult to write details about all the donations we receive due to the amount of work involved. If you are kind enough to arrange an event for Children Walking Tall and would like your event to be included in the newsletter, then please write a small paragraph about how the event went and who was involved.  The newsletters are very time consuming to put together so this would be a great help to us and allow more time to be spent helping the children.

Future Plans

School Admissions
School was a great success last year and we are aiming to get even more children into school this year as education is so important to the children. We hope this year the process will be a little easier as we have been working closely with 3 of the schools. We have some students going to new schools this year so we hope to increase our knowledge and set up links with these new schools to hopefully build a good relationship which will in turn benefit the children.

Clothes Distribution
In the next few weeks we hope to give out the last few surplus clothes to the local slums in Goa. The idea is to get them out before the monsoon starts. There are a few areas we haven't been to yet, and I'm sure we could return to Vasco and give to the children who missed out last time we were there.

Annual General Meeting
As it's off season Shermina and Robert will be heading back to UK for a month's break. While there they will catch up with everything in the UK and arrange the annual general meeting with the UK Trustees. They will also hopefully get a chance to meet some of the fundraisers and potential/ex volunteers.

What Can You Do?

Wisdom Trust
Would you like to raise money for Children Walking Tall for FREE, just by voting for us on 'The Wisdom Trust?' If you would then Click here, or find out more in the details below....

Anyone can vote for us, all you need is a valid email address.

1. It is completely free to you (all money is generated from people shopping through the site with well known companies and advertising)

2. Your inbox will not be filled with junk mail. Only one email is sent per month, which you can also opt out of.

3. To give Children Walking Tall the best chance of a larger donation, make sure you place your vote every day.

Spread The Word
An easy way to help Children Walking Tall is to spread the word - just let more people know about what we do! If you've received this newsletter by email, then simply forward it to your friends; otherwise send the link to our website, as this and our older newsletters are always available on our website www.ChildrenWalkingTall.com

Monthly Sponsorship
We have grown so much since we started, making it more important than ever to keep a solid base to work from. With this in mind, we are looking for people to give monthly donations so that we have a core fund we can rely on each month. We currently have people donating from £2 to £30 per month. The money would help feed the children each day by providing a morning snack, a main meal for lunch, and a second snack in the afternoon. It would also help provide vitamins, health care and allow us to keep money set aside to pay rent, electric and the water bills every month.

For more Information : http://www.ChildrenWalkingTall.com/Donations.htm

UK Fundraising Team
Become a member of our UK fundraising team by distributing leaflets, raising money or organising events. A good way to help is by finding something that you enjoy doing and get people to give you money for doing it! For example, you could organise a night out, an Indian evening or just have a party, there are lots more ideas in our Online Fundraising Pack

And Finally...

Newsletter By Email
If you have received this email by mistake, or wish to change your newsletter subscription then please fill in the online form on our website ( www.ChildrenWalkingTall.com/Newsletters.htm ).

Many Thanks from everyone at Children Walking Tall.

Contact Us
Children Walking Tall
'The Mango House'
H.No 148/3
Near Vrundavan Hospital
Karaswada, Mapusa
Bardez, Goa

Web : www.ChildrenWalkingTall.com
Tel : (0091) 9822 124 802